In between
by RoeRemedy
Summary: Short stories set between during and or possibly after all games. Mostly about general conversations, mundane stuff or character development. Possible slight JoeyxRosa at some point, very slight, nothing heavy. Ratet T I guess for potential language and possible violence.


Rosangela stopped typing and stared at the screen. She hadn't been paying to much attention to the last few paragraphs and could already tell that she would have to rewrite a lot of it – but she felt like she really needed a few answers.

„Why are you so afraid of talking to me, Joey?"

„whatever do you mean, dollface?" He had been hovering in front of the window, staring outside. Now he was turning toward her, looking unfazed. It had been two weeks since they had defeated the deacon and send him on his merry way and Rosa still hadn' t quite accepted her new.. roommate. She got up to look at him properly. „I mean that, every time I try to get you to talk about yourself, my aunt, my grandmother or what your life with them was like I get a maximum of two sentences out of you before you insist on us hunting down another lead about whatever ghost we are trying to save on that particular day. And you never tell me about yourself, really. I don't know how or why you died, what you did when you were alive..." she trailed of as he had turned his side to her, floating from one side of the room to the other, avoiding her gaze.

„I don't know what you want from me kiddo, I've told ya plenty." he replied, but she could tell she'd struck a nerve. He held his head a little bit lower than usual and seemed a little distressed.

„You told me about aunti alright and that grandma refused to interact with you.. But if this is gonna be my life from now on, if we're gonna be… living together indefinitely, I want to get to know you Joey. I need to get to know you."

„Whatever the hell for?! It's just gonna be the same! We're gonna work together and I'll get even more attached and then something horrible will happen and I'll get to loose you and will have to latch onto a new host and have to care again just to lose that person to. It's always the same. Always." He stuffed his hands back into his pockets and floated refused to look at her, apparently embarrassed that she had gotten him to actually talk about it. She had tried to rattle him most days of the past to weeks, never gotten a proper answer, but today, he felt.. off. It was getting harder. He didn't want to get through that pain again, he didn't want to care only to be hurt again. When Laura had finally died he'd been so relieved. He felt guilty about it too – but how else was he supposed to feel after twenty-five years of watching her suffer? There hadn't been a ghost. Just the quiet exhalation of her last breath and she was gone. After an eternity in a horrible bleak, white, patted prison, both of them were finally set free.

More or less at least.

Rosa was staring at him. What was he supposed to do. Would she stop asking if he just went into a wall and stayed there for a while? She wouldn't be able to find him, he was sure. But that was childish. He wouldn't just behave like a pouty child, oh no, not him! He was Joey Mallone, not some stubborn little kid.

„Joey… being with my aunt all those years must have been hell for you. Probably more than for me."

„You damn right it was hell!", he couldn't hold it in any longer. „I knew her kid! You barely remember her, I know, but she loved you kid and she wasted away! Wasted away because I couldn't protect her, because she made one lousy mistake and was targeted and than,-" Why did he still have to feel? He was dead, god damn it. Dead, dead and buried for over seventy years, if he couldn't move on, why couldn't he at least stop feeling things? How could he feel so angry and hollow at the same time with no body to produce adrenaline or any other body-produced drug?! „...than she died. After lying there 25 years. They would wake her sometimes, you know that now, and she would cry and scream, scream for me to help her but for some reason she couldn't even see me anymore. I tried reaching out to her so many times, tried to calm her or at least show her I was there, I hadn't abandoned her! But she couldn't… She couldn't sense me. She died thinking everyone had left her. That nobody cared anymore. Not even her lousy spirit-guide." He hung his head and sighed. A painful drawn out sigh, incredibly weary and deep for someone with no lungs. Rosangela looked at him and this time he met her gaze. „You happy now kid? Now you know something more."

With that he turned and went back to the window, staring at the rain.


End file.
